Calif. pistachio plant knowingly shipped Salmonella-tainted nuts for 6 months
What is it with nut processors that they seemingly think they can ship out Salmonella-infested shit and no one will notice?
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First it was Peanut Corporation of America, now Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella, Inc. in California knowingly shipped Salmonella-positive nuts for six months.
In an inspection report released this week, FDA officials said Setton first got results in October showing some of its roasted nuts tested positive for salmonella. But, officials say, it didn't make proper adjustments to its processing procedures and kept shipping out nuts.
Audits do not enhance food safety culture
“After the PCA (Peanut Corporation of America) plant, you had all the employees saying [the PCA facility] was a dump. It would have been nice for them to say that before nine people died.”
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That’s what I told a student reporter for the Kansas State Collegian in this morning’s issue.
The reporter, Tyler Sharp, has been working on a story about Manhattan’s own American Institute of Baking, the auditor at the center of the PCA Salmonella fiasco, for weeks, and had trouble finding anyone to talk. After a March 6, 2009 article in the N.Y. Times sorta shattered the myth of third-party food safety audits, Tyler figured the homegrown story would be a no-brainer. Except he couldn’t get anyone to talk.
Since the release of the Times article, AIB now requires a minimum of two days or longer to complete an inspection at a food processing facility. AIB has also announced it will change the name of its Good Manufacturing Practices inspection certificates from “Certificate of Achievement” to “Recognition of Achievement.”
Is that like Homer Simpson winning the First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence?
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I told Tyler, the reporter,
“Third-party food audits, like restaurant inspection, are a snapshot in time. They are not indicative of what happens day in and day out. It doesn’t really tell you much. There are some audits that are OK. It depends on the auditor. My concern is that — and I have done a lot of work with farmers and producers and companies — what you really want is to help people become better with food safety, whereas an audit is just a checklist that penalizes people. That doesn’t necessarily help people get better with food safety.”
The third-party food safety audit scheme that processors and retailers insisted upon is no better than a financial Ponzi scheme. The vast number of facilities and suppliers means audits are required, but people have been replaced by paper. Audits, inspections, training and systems are no substitute for developing a strong food safety culture, farm-to-fork, and marketing food safety directly to consumers rather than the local/natural/organic hucksterism is a way to further reinforce the food safety culture.
Costco, a retail store, which previously limited AIB’s inspections to its bakery vendors, has now instructed suppliers to not use AIB at all.
“The American Institute of Baking is bakery experts,” said R. Craig Wilson, the top safety official at Costco. “But you stick them in a peanut butter plant or in a beef plant, they are stuffed.”
Or as Mansour Samadpour of Seattle says,
“The contributions of third-party audits to food safety is the same as the contribution of mail-order diploma mills to education.”
Third party food safety audits are like mail-order diplomas
Mansour, I couldn’t have said it better myself:
“The contributions of third-party audits to food safety is the same as the contribution of mail-order diploma mills to education,” said Mansour Samadpour, a Seattle consultant who has worked with companies nationwide to improve food safety.
The Ponzi scheme that is third-party food safety audits is starting to collapse. Watching Jon Stewart on the Daily Show last night, the questions he asked to a N.Y. Times reporter about the financial mess could have easily been mapped to the food safety mess (see video below).
The N.Y. Times will report in tomorrow’s editions that the American Institute of Baking auditor who gave the Peanut Corporation of America plant in Georgia a superior rating before the peanut-salmonella shitstorm, was an expert in fresh produce and was not aware that peanuts were readily susceptible to salmonella poisoning — which he was not required to test for anyway. Oh, and PCA paid for the audit which Kelloog’s then blindly accepted.
The auditor even wrote in a Jan. 20 e-mail after the salmonella outbreak became public, that, “I never thought that this bacteria would survive in the peanut butter type environment. What the heck is going on??”
That’s why there’s FSnet and barfblog and hundreds of other food safety resources out there; he never heard of Peter Pan and salmonella in 2007?
In 2007, Keystone Foods, the Pennsylvania plant that makes Veggie Booty, received an “excellent” rating from the American Institute of Baking. But the audit did not extend to ingredient suppliers, including a New Jersey company whose imported spices from China were tainted with salmonella.
“The only thing that matters is productivity,” said Robert A. LaBudde, a food safety expert who has consulted with food companies for 30 years, adding that “you only get in trouble if someone in the media traces it back to you, and that’s rare, like a meteor strike.”
Dr. LaBudde said a sausage plant hired him five years ago to determine the species of bacillus plaguing its meat. But the owner then refused to complete the testing. “I called them ‘anthrax sausages,’ and said they could be killing older people in the state, and still they wouldn’t do it,” he said, declining to name the company. ...
Before the salmonella outbreak, Costco had rebuffed repeated proposals by the organization to inspect all its food suppliers. “The American Institute of Baking is bakery experts,” said R. Craig Wilson, the top food safety official at Costco. “But you stick them in a peanut butter plant or in a beef plant, they are stuffed.”
Costco, Kraft Foods and Darden Restaurants are among a group of food manufacturers and other companies that use detailed plans to prevent food safety hazards. They also supplement third-party audits with their own inspections and testing of ingredients and plant surfaces for microbes.
Natural Grocers defends itself against salmonella
Founded on the belief that "health should not be expensive," Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage grinds its own peanut butter in-store using only domestic, U.S.D.A. certified organic peanuts.
In a statement addressing Natural Grocers' connection to the outbreak of salmonella in Peanut Corp. of America peanuts, Executive Vice President and Co-Owner of Vitamin Cottage Heather Isely says,
"We are a relatively small, family-owned company that only sells carefully screened natural and organic products, and we work hard to source our products domestically because we believe in the quality controls in place in this country. We – among others – have been hurt by this one unscrupulous supplier..."
The company may have learned the hard way that natural and organic products are not invincible to foodborne pathogens.
Elsewhere in the statement, Isely says,
"[W]e trusted our government and industry food inspection process, which usually works extraordinarily well."
Since January 30, the fresh ground peanut butter made in Vitamin Cottage stores has contained peanuts from a new supplier, Hampton Farms.
"To further reassure our customers," Isely states, "we are now testing each lot of the new peanut butter stock for salmonella. We are working to find even more ways of keeping our customers safe."
Way to be proactive... now that you have to.
No incentive for a culture of food safety?
In an op-ed published on Marler Blog today titled, The market for peanuts: Why food in the U.S. may never be safe, Denis W. Stearns seemed to list three reasons why there is little economic incentive for producers to make food that is safer than that of any other producer.
Stearns argued that the culture pervading Peanut Corporation of America was a perfect example of those ideas at work.
1. To begin with, there is no such thing as a “free” market for food…
Consumers want safe food, but cannot tell if a food is hazard-free before purchase and therefore cannot discriminately buy only safe brands.
Stearns referred to a New York Times article that described “the array of poor work conditions and safety flaws” hidden behind the plant’s walls that was not perceived in its products until hundreds were sickened.
2. [R]egulations can impose a predictable cost that companies can meet, but need not exceed.
An incident/outbreak linked to one producer can turn consumers off the entire product-category, regardless of how far above and beyond regulations unassociated producers go to ensure safety.
In the same vein, George Akerlof was quoted as saying “there is an incentive for sellers to market poor quality merchandise since the returns for good quality accrue mainly to the entire group…rather than to the individual seller.”
3. Finally, there is the important issue of traceability—or, in the case of the United States, the stunning lack of it.
If it is not likely that an incident/outbreak will be traced back to the producer responsible, the possibility of making a profit from a contaminated food may be greater than the chance they’ll get caught.
Stearns cited e-mails by Peanut Corp. president Stewart Parnell in which he directed that contaminated produce be shipped: "I go thru this about once a week. I will hold my breath .... again."
Stearns closed with this:
[A]t this point, after outbreak after outbreak after outbreak, is it possible that finally, once and for all, the case for the effective regulation of the food industry has been incontestably made?
I can only hope so.
Because until the market for peanuts—and other food—is made to work for the benefit of the public health, the big profits will continue to go to the companies that cheat, cut corners, and do not care.
The recalls grow
AP is reporting that the Texas Department of State Health Services has ordered a recall of everything ever produced at Peanut Corp of America's plant in Plainview TX.
The order came Thursday evening from the Department of State Health Services. The agency says "dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers" were discovered Wednesday in a crawl space above a production area.
A state inspection also found that the unit's air handling system was pulling debris from the infested crawl space into production areas.
The plant began operating in March 2005 but was shut down earlier this week.
The health department order also requires the plant to stop producing and distributing food products.
This will lead to more recalls -- the FDA's searchable database already lists over 2000.
Some choice quotes:
Robert Grauer, president of In a Nut Shell, a San Leandro, Calif., said he's not taking any chances. The company has about 200 cases of peanuts from the Texas plant, and has to decided to hold them in storage.
"We're not going to take a chance risking our customers — not over some peanuts."
Ken Werner, owner of Werner Gourmet Meat Snacks Inc. in Tillamook, Ore., said fewer than 20 of his company's roughly 100 products contain peanuts. He recalled trail mixes and peanuts that were covered under earlier recalls linked to the Georgia plant. But he hadn't yet recalled any products linked to the Texas plant.
"We're waiting to hear from the FDA as far as a recall," he said. "If they issue a recall, we'll recall more products."
The Bergin Fruit & Nut Co. in St. Paul, Minn., has had nearly 2,000 pounds of raw redskin and blanched peanuts on hold since late January, when Peanut Corp. issued an expanded recall that included products produced at its Georgia plant as far back as 2007, said quality control manager Bill Jaspers.
"We will probably be destroying it because, frankly, I think PCA has got bigger problems than a product recall," he said.
Peanut Corp. president keeps quiet amidst accusations that he put profits before safety
After e-mails released in today’s U.S. Congressional oversight and investigation subcommittee hearing revealed the sentiments of Peanut Corp. of America's president, Stewart Parnell, toward the company's microbial testing, the Associated Press reported,
Parnell sat stiffly, his hands folded in his lap at the witness table, as Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., held up a clear jar of his company's products wrapped in crime scene tape and asked him if he would be willing to eat the food.
"Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, on advice of my counsel, I respectively decline to answer your questions based on the protections afforded me under the U.S. Constitution," Parnell said.
After repeating the statement several times, he was dismissed from the hearing.
Sammy Lightsey, his plant manager also invoked his right not to testify when he appeared alongside Parnell before the subcommittee.
As the hearing opened this morning, the Atlanta-Journal-Constitution reported,
Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Marietta, admonished company executives sitting in the crowd, saying they could invoke their Fifth Amendment rights not to testify, but that doesn’t protect them from justice if they’re found guilty of wrongdoing.
Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, was quoted as saying, “This company cared more about its financial bottom line than it did about the safety of its customers.”
According to the AP, the president of one company that tested products for Peanut Corp. spoke to the House panel.
Charles Deibel, president of Deibel Laboratories Inc., said his company was among those that tested Peanut Corp. of America's products and notified the Georgia plant that salmonella was found in some of its peanut stock.
"It is not unusual for Deibel Labs or other food testing laboratories to find that samples clients submit do test positive for salmonella and other pathogens, nor is it unusual that clients request that samples be retested," Deibel said. "What is virtually unheard of is for an entity to disregard those results and place potentially contaminated products into the stream of commerce."Georgia considers forcing plants to disclose positive test results
While Peanut Corp., the state of Georgia, and the federal government come under fire for letting salmonella get into roasted peanuts and those peanuts get into hundreds of products, a debate is stirring on the value of revealing the results of microbial testing.
Doug and Ben want manufacturers to show their results to the public, but Georgia's Senate Agriculture Committee just wants them to tell the state.
The Associated Press reported two days ago that the Senate Agriculture Committee was discussing a bill that would "require food makers to alert state inspectors within a day if internal tests show a contaminant in a plant."
According to a New York Times article that day,
Dr. Steven M. Solomon, an official in [FDA's] Office of Regulatory Affairs, said the agency has viewed such disclosures as a “double-edged sword” that might inhibit some companies from testing in the first place.
An AP report yesterday said the committee's chairman, Sen. John Bulloch, "delayed a vote on the measure until later this week as he waits for more industry response."
Meanwhile, Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin urged Congress to adopt similar requirements. He told members of a House food safety panel,
"We could have a strong law in Georgia, but if it's not followed by Congress, we could find ourselves in a position of driving out business."
History shows that companies caught without a culture of food safety don't stay in business, anyway. Smart companies know food safety is good business and should be happy to brag about it.
Peanut Corp. president urged shipping tainted nuts
It’s as bad as it gets.
Early reporting from today’s U.S. Congressional oversight and investigation subcommittee hearing where Peanut Corp. of America President Stewart Parnell was forced to appear and is expected to take the Fifth Amendment and not testify, depicts a company focused on profits rather than food safety.
E-mails between Parnell and Sammy Lightsey, manager of the company’s Blakely plant, were released as part of a congressional hearing that started at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
• In one e-mail, Lightsey wrote Parnell discussing positive salmonella tests on its products, but Parnell gave instructions to nonetheless “turn them loose” after getting a negative test result from another testing company.
• In another e-mail, Parnell expressed his concerns over the losing “$$$$$$” due to delays in shipment and costs of testing.
• Parnell in another company-wide e-mail told employees there was no salmonella in its plants, instead accusing the news media of “looking for a news story where there currently isn’t one.”
On Jan. 19, Parnell sent an e-mail to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, pleading with the agency to let it stay in business.
He wrote that company executives “desperately at least need to turn the raw peanuts on our floor into money.”
Other revelations underpinning the Salmonella outbreak:
• The Georgia Department of Agriculture conducted two inspections of the company’s Blakely, Ga. plant in 2008, but did not test for salmonella on its own on either occasion — despite an internal agency goal to conduct such tests once a year.
• The company’s largest customers, including Kellogg’s, engaged contractors to conduct audits, but they did not conduct their own salmonella tests.
*The FDA did not test for salmonella at the plant, despite the 2007 salmonella outbreak traced to the Con-Agra plant about 70 miles from Peanut Corp. of America’s Blakely plant.
Texas peanut plant closed after Salmonella possibly found
"It is clear that Peanut Corp. of America is not a producer that companies could — or can — rely on for a safe product.”
That’s what Seattle lawyer Bill Marler said after private lab tests show there may have been salmonella at a second plant operated by PCA in Plainview, Texas.
The Texas Department of Health said in a statement the plant temporarily closed Monday night at the request of health officials after the tests found "the possible presence of salmonella" in some of its products.
The Texas closing comes a day after the FBI raided the company's plant in Georgia, hauling off boxes and other material. Agents executed search warrants at both the plant and at Peanut Corp.'s headquarters in Lynchburg, Va., according to a senior congressional aide with knowledge of the raids.
Also today, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control upped the sick form Salmonella numbers to 600 in 44 states, along with at least eight deaths.
Some retailers slow to pull peanut products; test results need to be public
Shelly Awl, a clerk at a gas station on Cheshire Bridge Road in Atlanta, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution yesterday,
“It’s so confusing. I wish they would communicate better what is safe and what is not.”
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At a gas station in North Fulton, Karan Singh eyed with suspicion a pile of energy bars, cookies and snacks that had been laid at the check-out counter for purchase, telling a customer,
“I don’t think I should sell these to you. These might not be good.”
While many stores — particularly major supermarkets — appear to be keeping up with the recalls, smaller stores seem to be less consistent, according to some spot checks by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The salmonella outbreak linked to a South Georgia peanut-processing plant has spawned one of the largest product recalls in American history. The list of products that are off-limits has risen to 1,550, with new names coming out daily.
However, at Publix stores, spokeswoman Brenda Reid said recall alerts from suppliers and the FDA are immediately e-mailed to stores, which then have three hours to respond that they have removed the recalled item from the shelf. If it’s not accomplished, company managers continue to contact the store and will even send a representative there. District managers also check during their visits, she said.
The recalled item is also logged into the store’s computer, so if a customer finds one, the cashier will be alerted and will not be able to ring it up, Reid said.
Kroger stores are alerting customers who have a Kroger Plus Card of any recalled purchases through automated phone calls.
And in a feature tomorrow, the Journal-Constitution reports federal food regulators describe the 2007 Peter Pan peanut butter salmonella outbreak traced to a Georgia plant in 2007 as “a wake-up call.” But that realization did not lead officials to scrutinize at least one other peanut processor: the Peanut Corporation of America in Blakely.
They didn’t even know the plant made peanut butter.
The FDA first learned of possible salmonella contamination at ConAgra four years ago — two years before officials traced hundreds of illnesses to Peter Pan.
In early 2005, an anonymous tipster told the FDA that ConAgra’s internal testing had detected salmonella in a batch of peanut butter the previous October, agency records show. Company executives confirmed the test results to an FDA inspector but refused to turn over lab reports unless the agency requested them in writing. The inspector left the plant, records show, and never again requested the reports.
Congressional investigators later learned that FDA policy discouraged written document requests. Federal courts, the FDA said, had ruled that if manufacturers turned over material in response to a formal request from the government, those documents could not be used as evidence in a criminal prosecution against them.
But in the vast majority of cases, investigator David Nelson told a House subcommittee in 2007, the FDA pursues neither documents nor criminal charges. Nelson termed the agency’s actions “nonsensical.”
The FDA cited no violations following the 2005 inspection in Sylvester, said Stephanie Childs, a spokeswoman for ConAgra, which is based in Omaha, Neb. Long before the inspector arrived, Childs said, the plant had destroyed the contaminated peanut butter.
This is why when companies claim they test for Salmonella, like in this ad for Jif (upper left, thanks Barb) that ran today, it’s sorta meaningless without some sort of public disclosure or oversight.
Finally, a focus on the 'fallacy' of food safety audits
“They called me crazy at Masters and Johnson. But I’ll show them.”
The demented Dr. Bernardo from Woody Allen’s 1972 film, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask).
A week ago I asked, with all the recalled products related to Samonella in peanut paste, what problems did the third-party auditors uncover and what was done about such problems?
A few weeks ago, Chapman and I wrote that,
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Third-party audits are an incomplete form of verification that provide a limited view of a producer’s facilities and documentation but do not effectively reduce risk. …At some point, folks will figure out that all these outbreaks of foodborne illness – like Salmonella in peanut butter – happened at places that passed so-called independent audits.
Ten years ago, I told the Ontario greenhouse tomato growers they should have their own in-house food safety expertise to help farmers produce safe product and to market the program, with test results, to buyers and consumers.
They said I was crazy.
This morning, the N.Y. Times and USA Today are reporting that Peanut Corporation of America, the Blakely, GA firm at the epicenter of the Salmonella shit storm, had “regular visits and inspections” of its Blakely, Ga., plant in 2008, not only by federal and state regulators but by independent auditors and food safety companies that made “customary unannounced inspections.”
Kellogg's auditor, the American Institute of Baking checked out Peanut Corp. of America's Blakely, Ga., plant in 2007 and 2008 and gave it superior ratings both times.
"That's frightening," says Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.
Andrew Martin of the Times writes that,
Peanut Corporation of America’s statement was released as food manufacturers and public health officials tried to determine how so many inspectors missed what some have said were obvious problems at the plant, including improper sanitation procedures, live roaches, mold and slimy residue on floors and equipment.
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Kris Charles, a spokeswoman for Kellogg, said,
Had Kellogg known of the problems at the plant that the Food and Drug Administration detailed recently, “we would have discontinued the relationship with P.C.A. immediately and would not have accepted any ingredients from them.”
Jim Munyon, president of AIB International, based in Manhattan, Kan., said the company would not have received a superior rating if his auditors had seen the filth the federal government described.
“It would mean that we didn’t see it on the day we were there. What goes on the rest of the time, we don’t know.”
He did say that AIB wouldn't see internal test results unless PCA shared them. "They show us only what they want to show us," he says.
Doug Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University, said the salmonella outbreak at Peanut Corporation of America showed the “fallacy” of independent audits, which are commonly used to verify food safety, animal welfare claims and organic production methods. While the intent might be good, he said, the results are usually withheld from the public.
“Companies say they do all this testing. Great. Show us the data. They won’t. Given all the outbreaks, why should we believe them?”
Heck of a job FEMA: Recalled products in emergency food packages
CNN reports that emergency food packages distributed by FEMA in ice-hit Kentucky may contain recalled peanut butter products.
FEMA's written statement included:
Commercial meals kits manufactured by Red Cloud Food Services Inc., under the Standing Rock label, have been provided to disaster survivors in impacted communities, and these kits may contain peanut butter which is part of the precautionary national recall underway in accordance with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
People who have received commercial meal kits are asked to inspect the kits in their possession and immediately dispose of any peanut butter packets.
A written statement might not be the best way to get this info out to the 200,000+ who are still without power in Kentucky.
Recalls wreak havoc, but safety sells
At the grocery store yesterday I found jars of Kroger peanut butter stacked nearly waist-high on display at the end of an aisle. Curious, I circled the display, thinking I might find a sign saying “Does not contain Salmonella” or something to that effect. There was no such ad.
Why aren’t the makers of safe peanut butter bragging about it?
K-LOVE is always in the background when I do my writing.
While one of the K-LOVE news anchors was updating listeners on the Peanut Corp. salmonella outbreak, the DJ mentioned he put off buying a jar of peanut butter at the grocery store the night before. He felt it wiser to wait.
Peanut Corp., the FDA, and several snack manufacturers
—including General Mills and Kroger—have warned against eating products made with peanut butter and/or peanut paste produced by Peanut Corp.
FDA may not be entirely sure what products those are, but has said many times,
"We don't have concern about the national, name-brand peanut butter that's sold in jars at supermarkets and retail outlets."
Consumers are wary anyway.
Part of the problem could be the misleading images (such as the graphic above by ABC News) put forth by the media.
It could just be that recalls are scary.
After the Maple Leaf listeria outbreak, Canadians cut back on deli meats of all brands and even stopped buying hot dogs. People defensively avoided anything recognized to support the growth of listeria.
People value safe food.
If given a compelling story of how companies and industries identify and control risks, they might make different buying decisions.
Canadian rejection of peanuts led to recall? I don't think so.
The Globe and Mail reports today that a rejected shipment of Peanut Corp of America's (PCA) chopped peanuts last spring led to the recall of almost 200 products in Canada and over 800 in the U.S.
The Globe article says:
A customer in Canada rejected the peanuts, an act that may have saved lives here, and prompted officials with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to turn their attention to sanitary conditions in the Blakely, Ga., peanut plant at the centre of the outbreak.
As Fred Willard so succinctly puts it in A Mighty Wind: "I don't think so".
It's more likely that the 500+ illnesses and the 8 deaths linked to PCA's peanut butter products (not the customer-rejected peanuts -- in April 2008) led to the recall.
And overstating how great the system works (which happens all too often, akin to safest food in the world) when lots of other companies in Canada have used the peanut butter products is not all that reassuring. I know there is a lot of anti-America sentiment around the economic stimulus/protectionism stuff, but a Canadian company rejecting that shipment did not save the day and halt this outbreak (which is still classed as active) or start the recall. Sure the rejected shipment is part of the picture, but no one got really excited before the Salmonella illnesses started showing up.
That's right.
Salmonella recalls grow; Obama orders review of FDA operations
As the number of recalled products topped 800, U.S. President Barack Obama said this morning he is ordering a “complete review” of the Food and Drug Administration after it failed to detect shipments of salmonella-contaminated peanut products.
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In an interview taped Sunday and aired this morning on the television gabfest, Today, Obama said the agency’s failure to recognize and intercept the products was only the latest of numerous “instances over the last several years” in which “the FDA has not been able to catch some of these things as quickly as I expect them to catch.”
“At bare minimum, we should be able to count on our government keeping our kids safe when they eat peanut butter.”
USA Today today reported that the recall, one of the largest ever, started with bulk peanut butter, spread to crackers and cookies and has engulfed products as diverse as kettle corn, pad Thai and trail mix, with over 800 recalls and many more expected this week.
Robert Brackett, senior vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, said anecdotal evidence indicates that sales of all peanut-related products, even unaffected peanut butters, are slipping, adding,
"All it takes is a little company, and it has a huge ripple effect.”
The GMA says Peanut Corporation of America supplied less than 1% of peanut products sold in the U.S. Still, the FDA says the company has more than 300 customers, many of whom used PCA's products as an ingredient.
Brackett fears consumers will tire of checking recall lists and begin shunning anything with peanuts. Past food scares have shown that to be true.
When asked by CBC Radio in Sudbury, Ontario this morning, “what’s a consumer to do,” I said,
“Avoid the stuff for now. It may not be fair, but the recall list is growing so fast, it’s prudent. And now folks have an idea what people with peanut allergies have to go through.”
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FDA announces massive Peanut Corp of America recall
Multiple outlets are reporting tonight that every peanut, every ounce of peanut oil and all peanut butter and paste products produced by Peanut Corporation of America in its Blakely, Georgia plant since January 2007 has been recalled.
From the FDA website:
PCA sells its products to institutional and industrial users for service in large institutions or for sale and further processing by other companies. PCA does not sell peanuts or peanut products directly to consumers in stores.
The expanded recall includes all peanuts (dry and oil roasted), granulated peanuts, peanut meal, peanut butter and peanut paste. All of the recalled peanuts and peanut products were made only at the company’s Blakely, Georgia facility; the lot numbers and a description of the products being recalled are listed at the end of this release. The Blakely, Georgia facility has stopped producing all peanut products.
Peanut Corporation of American released a statement tonight that includes the following:
“The goal of Peanut Corporation of America over the past 33 years has always been to
follow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s good manufacturing practices in order to provide a safe product for consumers. It is because of our commitment to our customers and consumers that PCA has taken extraordinary measures to identify and recall all products that have been identified as presenting a potential risk."
"PCA uses only two highly reputable labs for product testing and they are widely used by the industry and employ good laboratory practices. PCA categorically denies any allegations that the Company sought favorable results from any lab in order to ship its products."
"We want our customers and consumers to know that we are continuing to work day and night with the FDA and other officials to determine the source of the problem and ensure that it never happens again.”
Being proactive and keeping food that has tested positive for a pathogen off of the plates of consumers is good for public health. Waiting until illnesses are reported is irresponsible and demonstrates a lack of concern for customers. PCA's words say that they place the utmost importance in food safety, but their reported actions suggest that investigating and fixing a pathogen problem is only important when there are illnesses, not before they occur.
As for PCA's customers, knowing the food safety practices of a supplier, no matter whether it's at a farmers market or a multi-national is really important. If they're in China or around the corner, they need to follow the rules and know how to reduce risks. This goes beyond relying on third-party audit results. Tracking where product goes and knowing what inputs went into it is the cornerstone of a good culture of food safety.
PB and Salmonella: where are the third-party audits?
Watching the number of recalls continue to grow in the Salmonella in peanut butter debacle, I’m wondering why is it taking some of these companies so long to issue a recall? Today it was Jenny Craig 
and dozens others. My guess is these distributors have no idea what’s in the products they are hawking and it takes weeks to track down such info. If a food processor really knows its suppliers, it should take hours or minutes to figure out if the suspect ingredient is in some kid’s peanut cracker snacks or Kirstie Alley’s Jenny Craig bar (she’s not with the program anymore? Oh).
And sure, everyone’s calling for better government oversight, but what about the third-party auditors? If Peanut Corporation of America was supplying paste and industrial tubs of peanut butter to all these processors and distributers, they must have had third-party auditors through the peanut processing plant in Blakely, Georgia. What problems did the auditors uncover? And what was done about such problems?
FDA says peanut plant knowingly shipped Salmonella-tainted product
Michael Rogers of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told reporters on a conference call Tuesday that the Peanut Corporation of America plant in Blakely, Georgia, shipped out products that managers knew might be tainted with Salmonella.
"The team identified approximately 12 instances in 2007 and 2008 where the firm identified some type of salmonella ... and released the products."
Records at the plant showed that after the company tested the peanut products and found salmonella, it sent at least some to an outside lab that showed no contamination. The products were then illegally shipped for sale, Rogers said.
"There (were) no steps taken (by) the firm as far as cleaning or to minimize cross-contamination.”
An FDA inspection of the plant also found at least two strains of salmonella bacteria at the plant, although they were strains that have not been associated with the current outbreak.
Details of precisely what the FDA found will be released on Wednesday, he added.
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Kellogg connection to Salmonella outbreak?
Kellogg has asked stores to halt the sales of some of their peanut butter snacks as it was announced that one of their suppliers is Peanut Corp. of America.
This connection might be what was missing for many of the outbreak victims who have not been associated with eating peanut butter. Maybe they had some peanut butter snacks? I'm sure the state and federal epidemiologists will be/have been looking at this link.
From the press release:
"PCA is one of several peanut paste suppliers that the company uses in its Austin® and Keebler® branded peanut butter sandwich crackers.
Kellogg Company's investigation has not indicated any concerns, nor has the Company received any consumer illness complaints about these products. Nonetheless, Kellogg Company is taking precautionary measures including putting a hold on any inventory in its control, removing product from retail store shelves, and encouraging customers and consumers to hold and not eat these products until regulatory officials complete their investigation of PCA and Kellogg provides further information as to the resolution of this issue.
With 2007 sales of nearly $12 billion, Kellogg Company is the world's leading producer of cereal and a leading producer of convenience foods, including cookies, crackers, toaster pastries, cereal bars, frozen waffles, and meat alternatives."
Good move by Kellogg for sure. If one of your suppliers is suspect, or has been linked to illnesses, take a look at where that product might have been used and figure out whether the risk has made it to your customers.
In a local connection for me, it was reported by ABC 11 here in Raleigh that the sandwich crackers on hold are solely produced at a plant in Cary, North Carolina. The FDA isn't saying whether they are inspecting the Cary plant.
King Nut stops talking
King Nut is evidently done talking about peanut butter.
Following a comprehensive recall by Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) of 21 lots of its peanut butter—including the King Nut product found by the Minnesota Departments of Health and Agriculture to contain a strain of Salmonella genetically identical to that found in over 425 sick people across the nation—King Nut deferred all further questions about the outbreak to PCA.
Clamming up is not good risk communication.
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However, after a couple unfounded claims, it may be wiser that King Nut stop talking.
King Nut’s last statement to the press was a letter from President and CEO Martin Kanan refuting the suggestion that contaminated King Nut peanut butter could have caused people in 43 different states to become sick.
Kanan argued, in bold font,
“We only distribute in seven states and therefore King Nut peanut butter could not possibly be the source of a nationwide outbreak of salmonella. (King Nut peanut butter is distributed to food service companies in Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota, Arizona, Idaho and New Hampshire.)”
Really? It couldn’t possibly? How do you know?
Do you track the consumption of all the peanut butter you distribute? Many states with sick people share borders with those seven states, don’t they? Maybe it’s not probable that all 425 people were sickened by King Nut peanut butter, but it’s still possible.
It’s a better idea to talk intelligently about those small possibilities than to make big claims that can’t really be proven.
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Another silly claim I noticed was found upon closer inspection of the January 10 press release. There, I realized Kanan did say “sorry” once. But he also said,
“All other King Nut products are safe and not included in this voluntary recall.”
Really? They’re all safe? How do you know?
Do you have data? The pinky promise (i.e. certificate of safety) PCA gave you didn’t seem to hold up, so why should we believe you?
Talking about the possible risks—however minute—is the only way to gain the trust of an intelligent public. Pushing unfounded beliefs or assumptions onto society is just one effective way to create chaos.
Just ask the South Koreans.
Talking about peanut butter
I know Doug has some beef with peanut butter. He’s got every right to avoid the foods he can’t trust to keep his family healthy.
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I, on the other hand, have a great relationship with peanut butter. It’s the nutrition that keeps me in. Once, for a high school project, I served a church full of friends and family a slew of dishes made with peanut butter and then told them how they were being saved from heart disease, breast cancer, and diabetes with those delicious monounsaturated fats and a low glycemic index.
This was after writing a 20-page paper on the nutritional excellence of the dietary staple. (Elizabeth Weise of USA Today called it a “sandwich spread”, but that’s entirely too limiting… maybe even offensive.)
Nutrition, however, is no consolation to people sickened by Salmonella contamination. Barfing (or even barfing potential) can turn anyone against a food pretty fast.
That would be why it was so important for the companies involved to start talking to consumers at the first sign of a connection between sick people and King Nut peanut butter.
King Nut Companies was first up, making it abundantly clear that the peanut butter in question “is 
NOT manufactured by King Nut,” but is merely distributed by them.
In another release, King Nut explained,
“Before distributing peanut butter, we require certification from our supplier that the product has been tested and is safe.”
While that fact relieves them of some responsibility, it does NOT remove all of it. Acquiring food from safe sources is expected of the company with their name on the jar.
Sheesh.
I felt a little more love coming from Peanut Corporation of America (PCA), who manufactured the peanut butter. Their press release opened with an expression of “deep concern about the apparent finding of salmonella in a container of one of its products.”
PCA’s statement went on to explain,
“PCAs facility and products are frequently and rigorously tested for salmonella and other microbiological contamination, including hourly sampling during processing and subsequent analysis by an outside, independent laboratory. No salmonella has ever been found in any of PCAs product.”
The public disclosure of product and environmental sampling is important in good risk communication. I hope to see more of this as the investigation into the source of the contamination continues.
